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Shakespeare in High School: The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You:

Culture and Representation, D2 KITAMURA Sae

Bard boom 1 Films based on William Shakespeares plays Modernised Shakespeare Baz Luhrmanns Romeo + Juliet (1996) The genre of the high school film and the classics Clueless (1995) Jane Austen, Emma Shes All That (1999) Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion Cruel Intentions (1999) Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (2000) Dostoyevsky Shakespearean high school films 10 Things I Hate About You (1999) The Taming of the Shrew a box-office success 2

O (2001) Othello Get Over It (2001) A Midsummer Nights Dream Shes the Man (2006) Twelfth Night High School Musical (2006) loosely based on Romeo and Juliet 3 The Taming of the Shrew

Why was 10 Things I Hate About You so successful?

The most misogynistic of Shakespeares plays Heavily criticised since the age of Shakespeare 4 Quote 1: Bernard Shaw, Shaw on Shakespeare 180 No man with any decency of feeling can sit it out in the company of a woman without being extremely ashamed of the lord-of-creation moral implied in the wager and the speech put into the womans own mouth. Shaw wrote Pygmalion. 5

Kroll used the word bard boom in 1999, and Welsh also used the same word in 2000. According to Rosenthal, this film earned 63 million dollars worldwide in 2000 (142-43). On the box office, see also IMDb. 3 According to Roberts et al., the creators of High School Musical had Romeo and Juliet in mind when they made the film. Critics, such as Goff and Teeman, also state that this film is a modern version of
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Romeo and Juliet.


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Shakespeares contemporary playwright, John Fletcher, wrote The Womans Prize, or The Tamer Tamed, a sequel to The Taming of the Shrew, which is satirical and sympathetic to women. On modern
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criticisms against the play, see Chambers; Berek; Garner; and Krims. On the influence of The Taming of the Shrew on Pygmalion, see Pederson.

The Taming of the Shrew and 10 Things I Hate About You The characters in The Taming of the Shrew Times New Roman The characters in 10 Things I Hate About You (Ariel) Padua (Padua High School) Baptista Minola (Dr. Stratford) The father of the sisters Hortensio, Gremio (Joey) Biancas suitors

Katherina (Kat) The shrew

Bianca (Bianca) The heroines younger sister Lucentio (Cameron) Biancas lover

Petruchio (Patrick Verona) The heroines lover

Tranio (Michael) The helper of Biancas lover

The story of The Taming of the Shrew

Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, is tricked into believing that he is a nobleman and made to watch a play about a shrewish woman. This play within play is The Taming of the Shrew. Baptista Minola, a rich man in the city of Padua, has two daughters. The elder sister Katherina is a bitter-tongued shrew hated by everyone, and the younger sister Bianca is loved by everyone because of her beauty and gentility. Since Baptista insists that Bianca should not marry before Katherina finds her husband, Biancas suitors ask Petruchio, a young man from Verona, to woo Katherina. Petruchio aggressively courts Katherina, forces her to marry him, and finally tames her. Among the suitors of Bianca, Lucentio outwits Baptista and the other suitors, and he marries her. In the last scene, Petruchio, Lucentio, and their friend Hortentio make a bet on their wives obedience, and it turns out that Katherina is the most obedient wife of the three. Katherina makes a speech on marital love, and preaches to the other two wives to be always obedient to their husbands. The story of 10 Things I Hate About You

The Taming of the Shrew is a typical metatheatrical play. In this play,

Director: Gil Junger Screenplay: Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith (the screenplay team of Shes the Man and Legally Blonde)
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Touchstone Pictures, 1999. Dr. Stratford (Larry Miller), a widower living near Seattle, is a strict and protective father of two daughters attending Padua High School. The elder sister Kat (Julia Stiles) is the least popular girl in Padua High School and indifferent to dating, while the younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) is the most popular girl. The Stratford sisters cannot get along with each other. Dr. Stratford, worried about his daughters, establishes a rule that Bianca can date only if Kat goes out with boys. Joey (Andrew Keegan) and Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the boys who like Bianca, bribe a bad boy, Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger), into asking Kat out. Patrick aggressively courts Kat, and finally they fall in love with each other. Joey and Cameron woo Bianca, and at first Bianca inclines to Joey, the most popular boy in Padua High School. It turns out, however, that Joey was once engaged in a romantic relationship with Kat, but they broke up because he treated her cruelly. Bianca strikes Joey and chooses Cameron. Kat and Bianca are reconciled, and Kat and Patrick start a rock band. Katherine and Kat A social outcast Secretly wanting a good mans love behind the facade of a man-hater Katherina in The Taming of the Shrew

Renaissance England unmarried womens vulnerable social status 6

Quote 2: Iwis it[marriage] is not half way to her [Katherinas] heart.7 Quote 3: Of all thy suitors here I charge [thee] to tell / Whom thou lovst best (II. i. 8-9). Quote 4: KATHERINA. She [Bianca] is your treasure, she must have a husband, I must dance barefoot on her wedding-day, And for your [Baptistas] love to her lead apes in hell. Talk not to me, I will go sit and weep, Till I can find occasion of revenge. BAPTISTA. Was ever gentleman thus grievd as I? (II. i. 32-37)
For example, according to Thomas Edgars 1632 The Lawes Resolutions of Womens Rights, section 3, All of them[women] are understood either married or to be married(6). 7 The Taming of the Shrew, I. i. 62. Quotations from Shakespeare refer to The Riverside Shakespeare, 2nd ed.
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Katherinas interest in marriage Respectable gentlemanship proper marriage Quote 5: Katherine the curst! / A title for a maid of all titles the worst (I. ii. 129-30) Katherina as an outsider Kat in 10 Things I Hate About You

Padua High School a hierarchical society based on a patriarchal order Cliques in U.S. high schools Quote 6, the definition of the clique: [W]ell-defined, densely connected networks of peers who are tied to each other by positive sentiment (Hallinan and Smith 898).

Popularity attractiveness toward the opposite-sex students 8 Cliques in Padua High School9 Jocks (popular athletes) Basic Beautiful People, Joey Queen bees (beautiful and influential girls) Dont Even Think About It Group, Bianca Wannabes, sidekicks, pleasers (queen bees friends) Chastity

Geeks or Nerds (otaku in Japanese) Audio-visual Geeks, Michael, Cameron Slackers (easygoing, often marijuana-loving students) White Rastas Preps sophisticated and high-achieving students Future MBAs Brains high-achieving students Other cliques in Padua High School Coffee Kids, Cowboys Outcasts Bad boys and bad girls Patrick Floaters Kat The animosity between the hierarchical cliques, bullying The Columbine High School Massacre 10 High school films and TV dramas the feud between the cliques11
8 See Adler, Kless and Adler: and Dion and Berscheid. See also Graham, ch. 1, Why Nerds Are Unpopular? 9 See HASEGAWA and YAMAZAKI. On queen bees, wannabes and sidekicks, see also Wiseman. 10 On the Columbine High School Massacre, see Brown. According to IMDb, 10 Things I Hate About You was released on March 31, 1999. The Columbine High School Massacre occurred on April 20, 1999. 11 On the cliques in high school films and TV dramas, see De Vaney and Murray.

Kat heinous bitch in Padua High School, a social outsider Quote 7: Kat on love and sex I swore Id never do anything just because everyone else was doing it. Against the heterosexual order of Padua High School Kats secret interest in love Petruchio and Patrick Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew

A young bachelor troubled by his unstable social status Gregory Doran: A coming-of-age tale of Petruchio, a social outsider (KOBAYASHI 305-11). Quote 8: at home, / Where small experience grows (I. ii. 52). The importance of marriage for men in Renaissance England12 Quote 9: I have thrust myself into this maze, / Happily to wive and thrive as best I may (I. ii. 55-56). Quote 10: I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her (103). Petruchio does not mind if Katherina is a shrew (I. ii. 65-76; 93-96). Petruchio wants to achieve recognition as a respectable man by finding a wife.

Patrick in 10 Things I Hate About You

A bad boy, an outsider in Padua High School A pretty guy recognition from others

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Thomas Smith, in his 1583 De Republica Anglorum, says, commonly wee doe not call any a yeoman till he be married, and have children (32). See also Rackin 148.

The difference between the original and the adaptation Emphasis on the social reintegration of outsiders through love

The Taming of the Shrew

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Katherinas speech on a wifes obedience (V.ii.) The scene of social reintegration Katherina earns the admiration of Lucentio (V. ii. 183). The couple are recognised as respectable adults in society. Too sexist for modern audiences, eliminated in 10 Things I Hate About

Focusing more on how Kat and Patrick begin interacting with other students, and how they are accepted by society The eccentric courtship cheered by the other students The prom a very heterosexual event Their reintegration into Padua High School A rock band cooperation The conservative plot of the social reintegration Peter Matthewss criticism (56) The social background which made 10 Things I Hate About You successful School Massacre. The interest of young American audiences

10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Hate About You was released just before the Columbine High

Quote 11: Richard Burts criticism Patrick merely saves her [Kat] from her potentially Sylvia Plath-like self-destructive impulses (213). Love connects the outsiders to society and teaches them how to avoid

self-destruction in 10 Things I Hate About You From the violent, misogynistic story of Taming of the Shrew to the story of reconciliation of 10 Things I Hate About You The films box office success

Bibliography Adler, Patricia, Steven J. Kless, and Peter Adler. Socialization to Gender Roles: Popularity among Elementary School Boys and Girls. Sociology of Education 65 (1992): 169-87. Beaumont, Francis and John Fletcher. The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon. Gen. ed. Fredson Bowers. 10 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966. Berek, Peter. Text, Gender, and Genre in The Taming of the Shrew. Charney 91-104. Brown, Brooks and Rob Merritt. No Easy Answers: The Truth behind the Death at Columbine. New York: Lantern Books, 2002. Burt, Richard. Afterword: T(e)en Things I Hate about Girlene Shakesploitation Flicks in the Late 1990s, or, Not-So-Fast Times at Shakespeare High. Spectacular Shakespeare: Critical Theory and Popular Cinema. Ed. Courtney Lehmann and Lisa S. Starks. Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2002. 205-32. Chambers, E. K., Shakespeare: A Survey. 1925. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965. De Vaney, Ann. Pretty in Pink?: John Hughes Reinscribes Daddys Girl in Homes and Schools. Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: Cinemas of Girlhood. Ed. Frances K. Gateward and Murray Pomerance. Detroit : Wayne State University Press, 2002. 201-16. Dion, Karen K. and Ellen Berscheid. Physical Attractiveness and Peer Perception Among Children. Sociometry 37 (1974): 10-17. Edgar, Thomas. The Lawes Resolutions of Womens Rights: Or, The Lawes Provision for Woemen. London, 1632. Garner, Shirley Nelson. The Taming of the Shrew: Inside or Outside of the Joke? Charney 105-19. Goff, Karen Goldberg. Musical Sweet Craze: Disneys Plot: TV Film Thats Simply Successful. The Washington Times 1 Oct. 2006: D01. Graham, Paul. Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age. Sebastopol, CA: OReilly, 2004. Hallinan, Maureen T. and Steven S. Smith. Classroom Characteristics and Student Friendship Cliques. Social Forces 67 (1989): 898-919. Krims, Marvin B. Uncovering Hate in The Taming of the Shrew. Sexuality and Culture 6 (2002): 49-63.
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Kroll, Jack. Midsummer Madness. Newsweek 24 May 1999: 74. Matthews, Peter. 10 Things I Hate About You. Sight and Sound 9 (1999): 55-56. Murray, Forman. Freaks, Aliens, and the Social Other: Representations of Student Stratification in U.S. Televisions First Post-Columbine Season. The Velvet Light Trap 53 (2004): 66-82. Rackin, Phyllis. Shakespeare and Women. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Pederson, Lis. Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew vs. Shaws Pygmalion: Male Chauvinism vs. Womens LIB? Weintraub 14-22. Roberts, Johnnie L. et al. Disneys Star Machine: How did High School Musical, a Basic-cable TV Movie, Become a Genuine Pop-culture Phenomenon? It Wasnt an Accident. Newsweek 24 July 2006: 42. Rosenthal, David. Shakespeare on Screen. London: Hamlyn, 2000. Shakespeare, William. The Riverside Shakespeare. Gen. ed. G. Blakemore Evans. 2nd ed. Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Shaw, Bernard, Shaw on Shakespeare. Ed. Edwin Wilson. London: Cassell, 1961. Smith, Thomas. De Republica Anglorum. London, 1583. Teeman, Tim. Tweenage Kicks. The Times 28 Aug. 2006: 4. Welsh, Jim. Shakespeare Boom or Bust? West Virginia University Philological Papers. 22 Sept. 2000: 150. 1 Mar. 2009 <http://www. accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-28765487_ITM>. Wiseman, Rosalind. Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter New York: Three Rivers Press, 2003.

Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence.

( 2007)[KABAYASHI Kaori, Jajauma tachi no bunkashi:

U.S.A (2006)[HASAGAWA Machizo and YAMAZAKI Madoka,

Shakespeare joen to onna no hyosho (Shakespearean Stage Productions and Representation of Woman). Tokyo: Nan-undo, 2007].

High School U.S.A: America gakuen eiga no subete (High School U.S.A: All About American School Films). Tokyo: Kokushokankokai,
2006].

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